The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) advocates breastfeeding as a means to ensure optimal health and development of infants and young children. The global recommendation from the WHO states:This recommendation is based on evidence collected through systematic reviews of the highest quality research available. Some of the established benefits of breastfeeding for mother and child include:

Lower rates of asthma, type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, ulcerative colitis and Crohn disease in children who were breastfed

Lower rates of postpartum hemorrhage, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer for mothers who breastfed their children

The World Health Organization performs regular updates of their systematic reviews to ensure all recommendations are based on the most up-to-date evidence. The WHO recently released an update to their 2007 review entitled “Long-term effects of breastfeeding: a systematic review.” In the 2007 report, evidence suggested that breastfeeding boasts a protective affect against obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, and is linked to better performance on standardized intelligence tests. The 2013 update lists important changes to these associations. A summary of the pooled results are shown in the following table taken from the 2013 review:

Pooled effects for each outcome, from all studies and from those deemed to be of higher scientific qualityOutcome Pooled effect (95% confidence interval)All Studies High Quality Studies* Mean total blood cholesterol (mmol/L) 0.01 (-0.05; 0.02) 0.00 (-0.02; 0.02) Mean systolic blood pressure (mmHg) -1.02 (-1.45; -0.59) -0.71 (-1.24; -0.19) Mean diastolic blood pressure (mmHg) -0.37 (-0.71; -0.04) -0.27 (-0.64; 0.09) Odds ratio of type-2 diabetes 0.66 (0.49-0.89) Not estimated Odds ratio of overweight/obesity 0.76 (0.71; 0.81) 0.88 (0.83; 0.93) Mean performance in intelligence test (points) 3.45 (1.92-4.98) 2.19 (0.89-3.50) *High-quality studies include those with larger sample sizes and adjustment for confounding variables relevant to each outcome [such as education and income].The WHO’s conclusions of the above data are as follows:The take home message of this update is while breastfeeding has significant benefits for mother and child, the benefits may have been overestimated for certain long-term effects (namely obesity, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and intelligence test performance). Breastfeeding appears to have a protective effect against high systolic blood pressure, but the effect is too small to be of clinical significance. There is a moderate protective effect against obesity that may also be due in part to other factors such as income and education level of the mother. Intelligence test performance does appear to improve if a child was breastfed, but the average improvement appears to be small (2 or 3 IQ points). Breastfeeding appears to have no affect on total cholesterol levels and there are not enough high quality studies available to calculate an association between breastfeeding and type 2 diabetes.”Breast milk contains all the nutrition an infant needs for the first six months of life. It is readily available, at the correct temperature, and convenient for mother and baby once a good breastfeeding relationship has been established. There are noted benefits for mother and child when an infant is exclusively breastfed. It is important to note that the 2013 review has not changed the World Health Organization’s recommendation that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life.You may also view this blog post on the website mothersofchange.ca